“My brother, Greg Walton, was there and invited Debbie to dinner at our house that night,” she began.

For a moment, I worried I’d missed the real story, the one about Debbie Reynolds and her rich, shoe magnate hubby dining at the home of an ordinary Montclair family, maybe eating Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes and Jell-O with fruit floating in it. I girded myself and kept reading.

“I remember when he came home and told my mom,” Walton Lind continued. “Unfortunately, she didn’t come!”

I was both sorry and relieved to hear it. I’m picturing Debbie Reynolds politely saying “That’s sweet of you, but I don’t think we’ll be able to make it” to the excited youngster, and later Mrs. Walton learning that her son invited Debbie Reynolds to dinner, and trying to decide what the odds were of Reynolds showing up, and whether to lay out another place setting or two, or have another can of peas ready to open.

Anyway, as far as Montclair goes, I think that’s a wrap on Reynolds.

Too ‘Tangled’

The author of “Tangled Vines,” a history of the California wine industry with an emphasis on Rancho Cucamonga, will speak at 1 p.m. Saturday. Frances Dinkelspiel will be at the Hughes Center, 1700 Danbury Road, Claremont, brought there by the Friends of the Claremont Library as part of its community read of the 2015 book.

Dinkelspiel brought a personal perspective to the story as her great-great-grandfather, Isaias Hellman, bought the 580-acre Cucamonga Vineyard out of bankruptcy in the 1860s after John Rains’ murder. Hellman, for whom Hellman Avenue is named, later founded Wells Fargo Bank.

I put my foot in it a few weeks back by asking Dinkelspiel if she would be speaking in Claremont. It turned out the Friends group wanted to invite her but worried they couldn’t afford her, and so hadn’t asked. I encouraged them to ask anyway, if nothing else to assuage my embarrassment at having brought it up, and they found a date when Dinkelspiel, who lives in Berkeley, was already going to be in Southern California.

If only all of life’s awkward moments could be so easily resolved. Or un-“Tangled.”

Dept. of Oops

Did I write Sunday that a meeting in Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday will be about widening the 10 Freeway? Sorry, that meeting is about widening the 15 Freeway. Evidently there’s a whole lotta freeway widenin’ goin’ on.

Valley Vignette

Montclair’s ban on pedestrian use of cell phones while crossing the street suddenly got Southern California’s attention when the L.A. Times plastered the story on the front of its California section Monday and KABC and KTLA followed up, with “Good Morning America” talking about the issue nationally on Tuesday. No doubt you recall having read the story here first in my Feb. 18 column. Since none of those big-time outlets would have known about the law without us (not that any of them bothered to give us credit), it looks to me as though there’s still value in local journalism. I hope so.

Since 1997, David Allen has been taking up valuable newsprint and pixels at the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, where he is a columnist and blogger (insidesocal.com/davidallen). Among his specialties: city council meetings, arts and culture, people, places, local history, dining and a log in a field that resembled the Loch Ness monster. The Illinois native has spent his newspaper career in California, starting in 1987 at the Santa Rosa News-Herald and continuing at the Rohnert Park-Cotati Clarion, Petaluma Argus-Courier and Victor Valley Daily Press. A resident of Claremont who roots for the St. Louis Cardinals and knows far too much about Marvel Comics, the Kinks and Frank Zappa's Inland Valley years, he is the author of two collections of columns: "Pomona A to Z" and "Getting Started."

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